A day on the road

Rottenvikbreen Glacier

Tom and Matt had great sleeps last night - I, as I had predicted, didn't do so well - the bed was comfy, I was happy and warm, but my brain wouldn't switch off - too excited about sleeping in a motorhome!  Oh hum, I did get some sleep, but it wasn't deep.  Plus I keep getting a dry mouth when I sleep at the moment which makes it really hard to stay asleep - not sure why that it?!

Anyway, we woke to blue skies - hurray!  The fjord was shining and still under blue skies.  We had a leisurely wake up and breakfast, and then decided to go inland a bit - we had discovered a short walking trail 8km inland.  As we drove up the road, I saw a sign to the Holmens - and I asked Matt to divert.  He was a little anxious as we didn't know how big the road would be or if there would be parking / space to turn, but I figured that there wouldn't be signs to things if there was no parking - so we hoped we would be alright and luckily there was a parking area with a turning circle - phew.  The Holmens turned out to be old Sami farms - made up of wooden bars with grass growing out of their rooves.  They were immaculate and looking through the glass we could see a spinning wheel and a loom and a visitors book - so figure they are open sometimes, they weren't open this morning though.

Old Sami dwelling

We then carried on to the start of the walking trail - but came across a big lorry delivering a huge cabin for the side of the road, the upshot was that there was no way pass it and no other routes in, so we gave up, turned round and retraced our steps.

We were surprised at how many houses etc we came across as we headed inland.  The villages round here are so pretty too, houses tend to be build with wood and stained lots of different colours.  All the houses seem to well cared for and pretty big.  Certainly there is money available around here.

We headed onwards on our journey towards Nordkapp.  The view was absolutely stunning, huge mountains rising into the air from the narrow fjords, we saw a caldera from the shores of a fjord - a part of the rim had broken away meaning we could see into it - never seen that before, amazing!  We also saw glaciers, plenty of snow and waterfalls, the water in the fjords was crystal clear and everywhere you looked it was outstanding - Scotland on steroids!

Lyngenfjorden

We stopped to take in the view wherever we could - there are lots of parking spaces - but most of them were on the other side of the road, and as you don't get much warning (if any at all) that makes it difficult to use them.  In fact the Norwegians don't seem to like signposts much - you only very rarely get a welcome sign for a town, meaning sometimes you aren't really sure where you are and although there are places of interest marked on our map - none of them are signposted - meaning it is hard to find them, or extremely easy to miss them.

Norwegian driving hazard

We meandered around the fjords.  Tom sat up front this morning - we was dying to do so.  So I sat in the back and watched the view go past.  We headed to the peak of a peninsula for lunch - hoping to find a view point on the map - we couldn't find it but we found a nice enough place to stop for lunch anyway.  Cheese and ham sandwiches on the menu today (and probably most days!)

After a stop to 'pant' our empties and get new drinks, I took over the driving for the afternoon.  Started with a hairy trip across a narrow bridge - but I managed it, then lots of climbing and descending over the hills.  Came across an old prisoner of war camp, and plenty of gorgeous scenery. After quite a long run, Tom said he was thirsty so I pulled over at a parking area and we got out our drinks.  There was already a motor home in the area and a couple were sat on some benches, so we joined them.  They were Norwegian and very friendly, we spoke for a good half hour and they gave us lots of tips about where to go, what to see etc and good campsites.

Typical scene

Al fresco dining in the arctic

Matt then took over the driving for the last 60 kms, once again through some lovely scenery.  They told us to watch out for reindeer on the road as they had seen some about 10 kms up the road.  We put our reindeer eyes in - but nothing...then about 40 mins after we left them, we came across a family on the road: Mum and Dad and a little calf.  Couldn't quite believe our eyes, and luckily we had no vehicles behind us, so could slow down and take photos.  We then came across a couple more, including a blonde one who seemed to be happy trotting down the middle of the road and almost entered a tunnel - what a goofy thing!  We ended up in a city called Alta, which has a population of over 20,000.  We decided to take the Norwegian couple's recommendation and go to the campsite they stayed at: Alta Strand.

Ingleton?

We checked in no problems, we are out of high season now as the schools have gone back, and got set up with electricity etc.  We then did a tour of the site, got our laundry on the go, played beach ball and frisbee, made tea (whilst I did this the boys played mini golf), sat outside in the sun eating tea, then had a family shower, before packing up the camping stuff and tidying the motor home ready for the evening.  Our neighbour came by to chat to us - an ex-Londoner who is now Norwegian and lives in Hammerfest.  He basically came over for some English practice - you could see he was struggling to remember his words.  Ex marine who ended up here to get away from it all.  You can certainly do that here!

A good day, lets hope the weather stays like this!